Project description
The shape of catalysis: tailor-made 3D single-nanoparticle architectures
Catalysis is one of the most important processes in chemical and industrial reactions. Advances in nanotechnology have brought us to the doorstep of single-nanoparticle catalysis. Single-particle plasmonic nanospectroscopy is the tool of choice to evaluate structure-function relationships of single metal nanoparticle catalysts immobilised on a substrate. Processing techniques have only accommodated disk-like nanoparticles to date; the myriad possible 3D crystal structures of nanoparticles are currently inaccessible. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the FASINA project will develop novel fabrication and synthesis techniques for tailor made nanoparticle architectures on surfaces compatible with a plasmonic nanospectroscopy platform. They could lead to a step change in single-nanoparticle catalysis.
Objective
Single particle plasmonic nanospectroscopy is a powerful and at the same time relatively easy-to-implement research method that allows monitoring of changes in the structure and properties of substrate-immobilized metal nanoparticles in real time and in situ conditions with only few restrictions in terms of surrounding medium, temperature and pressure. In the context of single particle catalysis, it has been successful used to study the impact of particle size and structure in catalytic processes on single nanoparticles. However, all the studies carried out so far have used lithographically-defined polycrystalline disk-like nanoparticles. In other words, thermodynamic and kinetic investigations on shape-selected single-crystal nanoparticles with well-defined architectures are completely lacking because none of the lithographic techniques uses to fabricate supported nanoparticles have the morphological control achieved in colloidal synthesis. Therefore, the aim of this project is to develop novel methodologies for achieving the fabrication/synthesis of shape-selected nanoparticle arrays on surfaces compatible with a plasmonic nanospectroscopy platform to apply it in the quest of deriving catalytic structure-function correlations at the single nanoparticle level. Assessing the state, activity, and selectivity of individual nanoparticles at atomic level has significant potential to contribute to the development of more efficient nanomaterials.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinator
412 96 GOTEBORG
Sweden